Republican 2000 front-runner George W. Bush yesterday said schools would be safer if juveniles who break gun laws face a lifetime ban on owning “any gun, for any reason, at any age, ever.”

Bush also said students should be free to transfer out of chronically unsafe schools, and teachers should be able to kick disruptive kids out of class and be protected from “junk” lawsuits when they enforce discipline.

He made his proposals in New Hampshire calling for an end to “moral chaos” in schools through tougher discipline, “zero tolerance” of disruptive behavior, and more teaching of moral values – including sexual abstinence.

He also said religious groups should be allowed to meet before and after school, say grace, “read their Bibles, wear Stars of David and crosses, and discuss religion.”

It was Bush’s third major speech on education; the others called for tougher accountability and a voucher program.

The gun ban is the Texas governor’s answer to combating tragedies like the Columbine HS shootings – an incident that Democrats have sought to turn against Bush by blaming him for opposing new gun-control laws.

Bush said new laws aren’t the answer because under the Clinton-Gore team, federal prosecutors have “almost completely ignored” existing federal laws that ban bringing guns to schools – of 3,900 violations in 1997-98, only 13 were prosecuted.

“It is easy to propose laws. Sometimes it is easy to pass laws. But the measure of our seriousness is enforcing the law,” Bush said.

Adults guilty of felonies are banned from buying guns, but the ban doesn’t cover violent juveniles, who get to start afresh as adults.

Vice President Al Gore’s spokesman, Chris Lehane, shot back that Bush’s approach is “bush league” and claimed the GOP candidate has “sided with the gun industry” against “our kids’ interests.”

But Bush’s speech won some surprising support – the teachers unions back Gore, but United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said Bush’s speech was “very Clintonesque,” which she meant as a compliment.

But Bush made it clear he doesn’t regard that as a compliment and took another swipe at President Clinton’s history of scandals, saying he vows to make the presidency – as Franklin Roosevelt once put it – “preeminently a place of moral leadership.”